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Camels charged with passing MERS virus to people

IT’S enough to give a camel the hump. They’re now suspected of carrying the virus behind Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). This deadly coronavirus emerged last year in the Arabian peninsula, and has killed 46 of the 94 people it has infected.

We know little about where the virus came from or how it spreads. So Marion Koopmans at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven, the Netherlands, and colleagues looked at the blood of sheep, cattle, goats and camels in Oman, Spain, the Netherlands and Chile. They found antibodies to MERS in all of the 50 Omani camels and 15 per cent of the 105 Spanish camels, but not in any of the other samples. This suggests that those camels had been exposed to the virus (The Lancet Infectious Diseases, doi.org/nfb).

The discovery was a surprise, says Koopmans. Until now, bats have been the prime suspect, because they harbour similar viruses such as SARS.

This is the first real clue to how the virus might spread to humans, says Anthony Mounts of the World Health Organization’s MERS team in Geneva, Switzerland.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Camels charged with carrying virus”